Guest seems to have fake name, will not reply with real name

1

Originally, no profile, and altho i went back and forth a number of times, was extremely resistant to putting anything on her profile, but sent me a lot of info by air email. Upon arrival, was stereotypical and spent hours drying her hair, crashing around, and actually was found at one time with my ironing board upside down on the floor pushing it with her feet to try to close it.

Altho her verified seemed legit, and she was a college grad and was going out on interviews, she was noisy and crude, slamming doors when she felt they did not latch easily, etc. I had to confront her on her second night at midnight to please stop banging around since I and another guest were trying to sleep.

She left the next morning, and I found the usual piles of hair, bed torn apart ala the hotel bedroom from a rough night, etc. I was in my house later that afternoon when apparently she used her keyed to re enter the house (checkout was 10am) and started rummaging through the room she stayed in the night before, that was cleaned and prepped for the next guest. I confronted her and she screamed at me that checkout was at 3pm and it was only a little after 3. I reminded her that checkout was 10am, and pointed to the sign in her room. I asked her to leave, and after some discussion, she did leave.

20 mins later, I came outside to my parking area and she was still there. She told me she needed to get her hair product, that she left. I was leaving so i asked her to move off the property and to email me with her needs etc. She did, I sent a special offer to cover postage, she accepted.

she asked me to send the item to another person. When I asked her for her full name (her profile is simply ‘li’) she ignored 3 requests for her real or full name and told me to send the item to this other person. I replied each time that it needs to go to her so i can collect a signature that she received it.

What do I do? Send it to this other person and hope that I am not being scammed? Insist on getting her real name and then reporting her to air for fraud? Ignore sending it until the end of the 2 week period and give her a scathing review and then send it to this other name?

2

ooo boy… Rolf… This is a complete nightmare. Frankly… I would have been done with her the minute she left. Why should a host be expected to mail things and do a whole runaround?

I would not have even sent this person a special offer. She should have been out of your property hours earlier, hair product or not.

Just madness. Mail it to the address she gave you and be done with her. Write a BAD REVIEW of this horrible guest with whatever name she gave you. (Although chances are good that the account is phony.)

By the way, you should open a case with Air if you have not done so already. Really sorry you had this nutcase stay. Definitely don’t rent to anyone who appears in any way dodgy. This case was screaming red flags all over the place.

2 Likes
3

By hair product, are we talking a half-used bottle of three-dollar shampoo? Why was it so hard to find? We left a phone charger at an AirBnB and didn’t bother going back for it, or insisting the host send it on to us - it was our fault and not worth the trouble. If a guest yelled at me, that would be game over. Anything she left would just go straight to the trash, or maybe out to the sidewalk to prevent her from hunting through the trash and making more of a mess.

1 Like
4

Open a case with Air and tell them exactly what you have just told us. I would also change your settings so you only accept verified guests with an offline ID… not just facebook or an email address.

and change the passcode to your door!

5

Ah, the ol’ bang crash thump a doo dah guest aye? Isn’t it just confounding, sitting in your home and wondering what on earth a guest in someone’s home could possibly be thinking to be slamming doors and thumping around at a time they can easily tell others are in bed? The answer must be they simply don’t care. They don’t give two hoots about anyone else’s sleep, peace, or how their noise might be keeping them awake. They aren’t bothered that the host must be wondering what on earth is being dinged, chipped and dented by all the banging and slamming. We have had quite a few of these kinds of guests visit. Usually quite loud and crude types of people that just don’t seem to have a clue that they are making as much noise as they are, either that or they just don’t care.

We now have a rule in our ‘house rules’ that says ‘please turn the door knob to close the door’, and further we have put little felt padding strips along the frame to prevent the slamming types of guests effecting everyone else so much.

It’s pretty obvious that this guest was your typical nightmare guest though. To have barged back into your home and rummaged through what she could clearly see was a remade up room is hard to believe. The idea that she wouldn’t call, text or message first. It’s always a shock!

I agree that you must leave a bad review, but wait until the end of the two week period. I think you should definitely do as Kirsty Jane advises and call Airbnb to make them aware of what has gone on, in particular the fact that she is elusive about her name. As far as whether you decide to spend your own money to return her hair product, that is up to you, but after the treatment she dished out, don’t feel obliged. I normally send things back to guests at my own expense, but I would not be feeling so happy about it here, especially given the fact that she refuses to give her name. This is actually worrisome. I believe she has a history on Airbnb and has created another profile. She isn’t giving her full name so as to not get caught. Hopefully by calling this issue in to Airbnb they can find out who she is.

6

that’s crazy time!!! beware crackheads running from the police! do open a case with air and learn to use the “decline” button :slight_smile:

7

Oh boy…I am so confused now. I thought all guests had to be verified before the booking could be accepted. I was under the assumption they could make an inquiry without being verified but in order for reservation to be confirmed they had to show ID and offline, online verification.

So according to this post any Joe Shmoe can just make up a fake name, throw email, and book with anyone’s credit card?

Was this person Chinese? You mention the stereotypical spending hours drying hair?

8

there was verification, but no profile, she kept ignoring my request to put her stuff in ‘profile’ but was eager to simply put it in our correspondence.

She pretends to not understand my request or simply ignores them, every time I asked for her full name she says she is on airbnb why do i need to know what name she has.

And for a clue to her ethnicity, she pretends that she thought checkout was at 3pm even tho it is in her itinerary, on a sign in her room, and actually said bye and took all her stuff that morning. No regard for privacy, no regard for others… BUT she remembered in detail all that happened over those two days (at least her interpretation. Funniest was she mentioned that she heard me ‘coming back to my room’ at 2:30 am. Yes, clue: wee use the bathroom, sometimes at night. She g=brought THAT up in the context that suddenly she was unable to enjoy a good night’s sleep because the owner of the home used the bathroom once.

1 Like
9

Hi Rolf,
I found that the best way to deal with these types is to decline in the very beginning. I’ve had cases where an entire family asked to move in, complete with barbeque pit to eat meals at my house. There was also a woman who kept badgering me to come on their motorcycles and ride the horses on my property, which aren’t even mine, and another person who wanted picked up at the train station and drvien around as if I were a tour guide. I nixed them from the very first inquiry and they even kept trying.
I just filter out anyone who is being difficult from the get go to avoid problems. If there is anything at all that appears shady I decline them. This has avoided drastic problems.

1 Like
10

Two… such a great word of advice… New host will QUICKLY learn the hard way to recognize all the red flags… including the bargain hunters. Anyone who’s banging on for a discount is not my kind of guest and they get a GREAT BIG NO from me. No doubt they will get move on and still find lodging with an inexperienced host who thinks any amount of money and weird guests are better than no guest… and doesn’t know better! :slight_smile:

1 Like